Insights
by Sara Loui
Summary: POV of a writer who has been asked by Gen Hammond to write a report on the SGC and SG1 after the Stargate program has been disclosed to the world.


DISCLAIMER: "Stargate SG-1" and its characters are the property of MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp., Showtime/Viacom and USA Networks, Inc. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. 

Insights

The following information I am about to write of, I ask you to partake with openess and understanding. Open minds are what I ask for, for at this time, when the world is still coming to grips with the uncovering of one of the best and biggest kept secrets seen in the past century if not longer. The revelation of the SGC program has been something which each man, woman and child has only just began to deal with, and with such revelations, an uneasy future has spread before us. More oppostion than anything has sprung up, with negativity across the globe of such proposterous proportion concerning what I believe is the forefront line of defence against enemies such as we have never dreamed of.

I have been asked to write this, report, story, information, take it as you will, by a man whom I have the greatest of respect and admiration and ask that you the reader will have just one iota of the same for him.

General George Hammond, oversaw the SGC program for a little over seven years, before being first removed from the project for a civilian, a well known civilian to take over his post. The General was then moved onto a new section of the pentagon, 'Homeworld Security' which oversees everything which goes on from the SGC. He has earned the respect of every person who has had the honour of working under his command whether they be officer or civilian. If you get anything from reading this, then it is that Geroge Hammond is a good man and my hopes are that he comes out of the madness and mayhem which has arose, unscathed, untarnished and his name untainted.

We do not understand the polictical drama which must have unravlled into mayhem upon the descision by the five countries in the know of the SGC program ( The United States of America, The United Kingdom, Russia, China and France) to disclose the information to the world of the Stargate Program. But the havoc ensued by the civilians does give us some indication of how the political powers will be dealing their cards in the fight to own the rights of such a program. I do have some knowledge of the polictics, especially between that of the USA and Russia concerning the Stargate program but I am not at this time, allowed to disclose that type of information, only to say that in certain respect the Program has only furthered and strengthened relations between the two countries.

I can however give high regard to Colonel Chekov, the russian liason officer to the SGC. Once himself highly opposed to the Stargate Program, or rather the United States running the program, he is now a firm supporter of SGC and is an integral part of the program. He has earned high respect from the people of his country and SGC , and what once was a rocky relationship between himself and the now commander of the SGC, Colonel Jack O'Neill has become a solid realtionship of trust and respect between the two. I have had the honour of meeting him myself twice and on both occasion found him to be the most respectable of officers.

I may have had the same thoughts as the cynics and trouble makers who have taken the information we were suddenly faced with, at 9pm that fateful morning on May 18th. I myself was settling into a quickly made breakfast when President Hayes appeared on my TV screen. Only hours after I was sitting in the same spot wondering how the world outside was reacting, unsure myself how to absorb that fact that the largest secret I have ever known of had been disclosed to the whole world. I had an advantage, I already knew of the Stargate Program, having had the oppurtunity to work as a scientist for six months at the SGC facility.

In those six months I learned more than a person could in their lifetime. I met people, I am honoured to call lifelong friends. I mourned the death of members, met alien races, worked on technology, I never dreamed would exist in my lifetime. If I achieve anything in writing this, it is to portray the SGC not only as a military facility and first in the line of defence in the fight against the goa'uld, but also that the SGC is a close knit community of family and friends. There is not a man or woman within the confines of the facility who would not give their life for another. The unwritten rule, which possibly runs silently throughout any military command, but particualry here, is that nobody is left behind. Officers, teams even civilians of the facility have risked their lives to bring teams and people home, too many to account for. Many lost their lives too, for a cause we will never be able to truly grasp. They have seen the nightmares of the goa'uld. The evils they can bring upon civilisations, fought the battles and overcome the situations.

George Hammond approached me, asking that I portray who the people of the SGC really are. I feel it necessary to at least speak of one team in particular, the infamous SG-1. A team, a name which has certainly been dragged, pushed, pulled and rolled through the media like some cheap puppet for the sake of some semblance of reason for the SGC. I ask you to take a moment and truly ask yourself what do you really know of the team you surely have heard of throughout the chaos which has come from the diclosure of the Stargate program? What do the names, General Jack O'Neill, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Colonel Samantha Carter, and Tealc sum up too in your mind? I fear not much in some cases, or at least not anything good.

I am able to speak on them not only as a team but as people, because, even years on after working within the confines of Cheyanne mountain, I have come to know them as friends. They are no longer only revered names I learned when joining the SGC. Still revered but also familiar and known, understood. And so with a deep breathe and giant step I will try and portray to you who these people truly are. In taking on this task General Hammond asked me to take on, I was given exclusive access to reports, files, statements of each member and most of my time working on this project has been taken up reading through each one. Let me assure you I have had a lot of sleepless nights in taking on this enormous weight, and I am now as much a caffeine fiend as Doctor Jackson himself, and I am sure Daniel will not be offended by my giving away the fact he is a caffeine addict. And so with deep breathe and huge intake of caffeine stimulant I will take the plunge.

General Jack O'Neill, is by no means your usual a typical military officer. On the contrary he possesses a wit and sarcasm to rival any widely known and famous comic of stage and screen. With Jack O'Neill you are expected to earn respect, no matter how much of it you have from everyone around you. A hard task by any measure until you allow yourself to be judged on your own merit instead of other peoples.

O'Neill has a long service history, including fighting in Iraq and being in the black ops for several years. Along with this Jack was also married and had a son. Unfourtunately, his son shot himself and it is a burden Jack O'Neill has carried on his shoulders ever since. It is also what brought him to the forefront of the Stargate Program. After going into retirement, he was once more called back to duty, to lead the first mission through the Stargate.

The consequences of such a mission could have been very different, initially it was a mission which could have ended dramatically different. However fate lent her hand to the situation and O'Neill returned only to take up retirement once more. Almost a year later O'Neill was once more called for duty, which eventually resulted in his taking command of the first SG team. SG-1.

When not leading daring missions through the Stargate, there is nothing more Jack likes doing than settling in front of the TV set watching the Simpsons or heading up to his cabin in Minnesota (where he grew up)and fishing in the small lake/pond in its backyard. After leading the team for seven years, O'Neill was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General and overtook the position once filled by Hammond as SGC commander. A task which seemed overwhelming at first but ulitmately a challenge O'Neill has taken by the horns.

To go into detail of how important Jack O'Neill is in the structure if the SGC would take months. However it can be said, he and his team are an integral part of the community of the SGC. O'Neill has lead his team into missions with uncountable odds, overwhelming danger and dire consequences. The experiences he himself have been put through are unfathomable, even after reading the endless reprts. And still he sits at his position of now running the SGC and he does it with a determination that the program and the people under his command are not tainted by the negatvity being shown before them.

To say Jack O'Neill is perfect would not be true. He doesn't strive to give himself a good name, in having to earn his respect, he offers his own in the same light. He expects you to take him as he is, and it is obvious to see by the resect of every officer he commands that he is highly respected and liked. When I first met Jack O'Neill it was as if a whirlwind had spun me around and I wasnt in kansas anymore. Jack offers you a friendly smile, sarcastic comment and sturdy handshake. From then it's a up to you decide what foundation you lay in becoming a friend or foe of the man. O'Neill takes how you think of him with a pinch of salt, but it's plausible to say, if you don't earn this mans respect, you will feel as if you lost out on a spectacular unusual friendship and regret not giving your all in at least trying to know the man.

In talking about Jack and friendships it ultimately brings me to Doctor Daniel Jackson. Daniel Jackson is a man who certainly wears his heart in his sleeve, and he has an enormous heart. For being an optomist and Jack a certain pessimist there is a certain strong underlying loyalty between the two. Daniel Jackson is the man who literally opened the Stargate. Jackson had his fair share of hardships to deal with before joining the Stargate program. Losing both his parents at an early age and growing up through intermittent foster homes, Jackson became a keen archaeologist and specialist in ancient cultures and myths.

Through his studies Jackson became a firm believer that the pyramids were infact ancient platforms used as landings sites for an alien race. His insights, specualtions and research fell on deaf ears and he lost a lot of resect and instead earned ridicule from the academic community because of his (then thought of) outrageuos claims. One important player in the history of the Stargate program however, saw potential in the claims. Doctor Catherine Langford (deceased). Dr Langfords father was the man who oversaw the dig of the Giza site where the Stargate and it's coverstones were uncovered. Jackson was brought onboard to decipher the inscriptions of the coverstone, ulimately leading him to the key to opening the Stargate.

The fateful day of Catherine Langford offering Daniel a chance to prove his theories proved to be a turning point he never looked back on. I cannot speak of any member of this team without saying that the experiences each personally have gone through are enough to write several volumes of books. Jackson is no different. He is an integral part of the community of the SGC. Being a civilian and as I said wearing his heart on his sleeve has proven for the most part and important part in the running of the the facility.

Daniel will make it his job to ensure you feel at ease and comfortable. Upon meeting him, it took me mere minutes to like him and realise the people around him held him in high regard. When engaged in conversation with Doctor Jackson, you realise that he is taking in every word you speak with an intense interest, something which can be disconcerting if your used to being a scientist usually wavered off when babbling some incoherent nonsense to people who don't uderstand a word. In the same way you cannot help but hang on every word he speaks when you join in conversation on his latest discovery from some far off planet in the galaxy of an ancient civilisation. Civilasations which died out long ago on our own earth.

You cannot help but know that Jackson is always keen to see the good in every situation and every person. Soemtimes this can be a disadvantge and there are many times it may have brought chaos to a situation. But he stands by his beliefs and there is definite quality in a man who believes in giving everyone a chance. Daniel has an ability of seeing a situation from all sides, and trying to relay his point of view while also accepting that the people around him will not see things the same way. One can see how exasperating a man such as Jack O'Neill can feel with Daniel around, but Jack O'Neill being the man he is can have nothing but respect for Daniel Jackson.

Speaking of the two men who were at the forefront of the Stargate program brings me to Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter. Sam Carter is the science expert of the SGC and a theoretical astrophysicist. As Dr Langford and Daniel Jackson, along with their team, worked on deciphering the coverstone of the Stargate,behind the scenes Carter was responsible for setting up the dialling device to connect to the gate as well as continuing on to decipher the gate address system itself.

Samantha Carter is a warm, friendly individual with an underlying devotion to her work, and especially her team. She is openly friendly, but like O'Neill you you have to earn the respect you want. Although she will give it more willingly and quicker than O'Neill. It is hard not to respect Samantha Carter, to say the least she is a genius, something which can be as much a burden and hindrance as well as something to be proud of. As a scientist I have studied her work and of all the reports I read of this team, hers intrigued me the most in the scientific insights it outpoured.

Carter, was the second in command to O'Neill throughout the seven years he led Sg-1 and became the team leader upon her promotion to Lt Colnel. As much as she is a genius in a science lab, she is a highly trained, skilled officer in the field and trusts her fellow team mates implicity with almost a mothering instinct of protection for them.

After losing her mother in a car accident when she was younger, Samantha eventually followed in her father footsteps and joined the airforce, with aspirations to eventally join Nasa, perhaps even get the chance to go up in space. Years later not only has she been in space, but also travelled through it to distance planets. She has a unique relationship with each member of her team, and regards each as her family. Her friendship with O'Neill is one of mutual respect and understanding of the military situation they deal with through the SGC. With Daniel the bond of siblings is apparent and equally a understanding of each others work in their individual scientific fields. With Teal'c, I have watched their bond grow from acceptance as warriors to an easy going close freindship as people.

Which brings me to the fourth member, Teal'c. A warrior, a trusted ally of the SGC and yes and alien. Teal'c is a jaffa, a slave used to carry goa'uld larvae until they are mature enough to take a host. Fourtuntely for Teal'c a medicine has been found so he no longer needs to carry a symbiote. When I was first intorudced to Teal'c, I was overwhelemed mainly because of the his size and height. I being of small proprtions was dwarfed by him and he had an uncanny way of looking upon you as if he could see into you and know exactly what type of person you were.

At first it was hard to accept how to understand him as an individual. The unfourtunate tittle that he is given, an alien, draws attention away from the fact that he is in every other way a humanoid. As far fetched and outlandish as it sounds, the jaffa are by no means different from ourselves except for the fact that they are put through a barbaric ritual at an early age in order to serve as slaves the goa'uld. Upon getting to know Tealc I have come to know of a great warrior race who fought for freedom for eight long years and it is impossible to speak of him and not his people.

The jaffa are a warrior people, that way because of the goa'uld who have enslaved them for thousands of years. Teal'c himself served as the highest ranking jaffa, a first prime, to the goa'uld Apophis(deceased). But his jaffa master, teacher and close friend Bra'tac helped sow the seed of doubt against the goa'uld and Teal'c took the oppurtunity on meeting Jack O'Neill and his team when they were captured on his homeworld as one to start freeing his people from their enslavement. In making this descision Teal'c left his people and more importantly his family behind in order to better their lives.

Teal'c's journey of freeing his people has been long and hard and not without its downfalls, but he eventually slowly built up a jaffa resistance, and victory was inevitable. Over the years the jaffa have slowly been learning what it truly is to be a free people, and how to intergrate themselves into their cultures as a people and not following traditions as slaves.

Teal'c is still an integral part of the SGC and SG-1, and he is an important friend and member of the SG-1 unit. He is a mand of few words, but the words he does speak are often those of dramtic wisdom, from long years of experience. He also has a knack for raising an eyebrow conveying his thoughts and feelings on numerous matters. Knwoing him over the years I enjoy to see his insights in the goings on of the humans around him. To see us through anothers eyes is always an interesting aspect.

The four as a whole are unique, it is uncanny when seeing them together how they interact and work with each other. After so many years of close working and personal relationships it's as if they are connected by an invisible thread which can never be broken. Perhaps I am biased, because I've gotten to know these people as people and not just some names the media have decided to spread over the front pages as the situation spirals exponentially into uncertain territoy.

So take it as you will, I am prejudiced because they are my friends I am writing about. I took on the task of relaying them to you, with the relistic view that I would not taint their names anymore than what has been done. I have been honest in my thoughts on them, and there are many others of the SGC and of the alien races I have had the honour of meeting whom I will defend too the end with the upmost determination that they will be given the highest respect. Each have had to overcome hardships in their pasts and yet for it they have become the people they are. Respected by their peers, geniuses int heri own right, fighting for what they believe in, defending our little patch of the universe with no thought for their own lives.

The political powers of the world will continue to fight over the running of the gate program. The media will continue to drag the SGC's name through the mud and gather up as much skeletons they can from the closets of the personnel. And I will continue to defend those people and their values. It's the least I can do.


End file.
